Eulogy
by Mad Maudlin
Summary: Alice Longbottom tried to do everything right.


Eulogy

by Mad Maudlin

for Violet Quill's Voices and Vaginas challenge

I'm not a bad person.

Really.

I don't swear. I don't gossip. I saved myself until marriage. I don't hex people when I'm off duty. I've never used an Unforgivable. I've never gotten drunk. I've never stolen or lied or lashed out in anger, at least never that I can remember, or that it counted. I love my husband and I love my son and I try to do everything right.

But still, I'm glad it wasn't us.

Wasn't _me._

It's only natural, to be relieved, after so long—and it's not like we're not mourning. Sometimes I think we're the only ones mourning in the middle of the biggest celebration in history. Frank rails about it, says that they deserve a state funeral, Orders of Merlin, a national holiday; I suppose they do. But after so _long,_ so much fear and terror and pain and endless waiting—it's natural, I think. It's allowed.

Lily and James would understand.

We talked about it once, before—everything. Lily and I sat in the break room at work and compared the expansion of our bellies (I won). We talked about this and that, light topics, maybe maternity robes or cribs or something, but then she said "I hope..." and sighed, as if she were looking through me to the wall.

I asked her "What?" because I was certain she'd say _it's a boy_ or _I'm a good mum_ or _my breasts won't droop to the floor._

"I hope we can do this," she said instead. "Make them a future."

Not a _better_ future or a _brighter_ future. A future _at all._

Lily and I didn't talk much after that.

We weren't really friends anyway, I suppose—Frank was their friend, Frank was James's friend, and Lily and I were just along for the ride. But at least Frank and Lily had known each other before. I was a Hufflepuff and two years ahead of her, practically a stranger, really. I knew her name—Lily Evans, most brilliant witch in her year, Muggle-born and popular. She didn't know mine.

"So you're Frank's new wife!" she had said when we came to their wedding.

I said "Actually, we've been married a year."

"Oh, of course, I'm sorry—don't know where my mind is—what's your name again?"

"Alice."

"Of course, that's right...have you met my sister?"

I liked Lily, though. Everyone did. And what happened to us, we had to do—it wasn't fair.

It was a nice day, when Dumbledore told us—I don't know why that bothers me, maybe I just spend too much time listening to the soaps on the WWN—it was gorgeous, hot and clear and fine, and I was miserable. I was so close to my time when Dumbledore called—the only thing worse than a very pregnant witch in the Floo is a very pregnant witch on a broomstick, and Apparation's right out, you know, you might splinch the baby. But we were summoned and we went, knocking about on the Knight Bus. I lay back on a sofa and clutched my baby and closed my eyes, and Frank held my hand and cursed the driver and muttered dark words about the Ministry and flying carpets. Lily and James arrived on a motorcycle.

"I do not relish having to tell you this," Dumbledore said in his spell-cooled office while we drank iced pumpkin juice and wiped the sweat from our brows. "But it is vitally important that we prepare ourselves against every eventuality. You are all in extreme danger."

He told us about the prophecy. He told us about the spy. He told us about the danger to our sons and when he was done I laughed at him. I couldn't help it. "Professor," I said, "Professor, you've got it wrong. I'm not due until the second of August."

"I know the midwitch's prediction, Alice," he said, and he was so _serious,_ it was just so _funny_. "But I am too old not to have noticed that children often have their own ideas about the time and place of their birth."

"_No,"_ I told him again. "You've got it wrong."

Frank grabbed my hand and said "Alice—" but I shook him off, because he didn't _see,_ none of them saw that the old man was _wrong, had_ to be, it was too much—couldn't they see, it was too much, we had suffered enough—I had lost enough, _done_ enough—this was just too _much_, it couldn't be _true_, he was wrong, he had to be wrong, _wrong, WRONG—_

A Calming Charm hit me like a heavy soft blanket, and that's when I noticed the tears on my face, and realized I had been screaming. Frank was gripping my hand so hard that it hurt, but that was okay, because I was calm, at least until the charm wore off. "It's not true," I told them all.

Lily levered herself up and took me by the arm. "I think Alice needs to lay down."

She guided me up and out of the room. I told her, "It isn't true."

She said, "You need to lay down."

I remember that day very clearly—it's funny, I suppose, but I remember that hour or so more clearly than just about anything. Lily led me to a sitting room I'd never seen before—we must've looked so odd, two great pregnant witches toddling through the castle, holding hands—she made me lay down. She sat in a chair next to me and told me to relax, that Frank would take care of things.

"He will not either," I said. "He's a bloody great thick-headed idiot."

So perhaps I do swear, on occasion.

"Frank will be fine," Lily said, and brushed my hair out of my face. "He's a very practical man."

"Idiot," I said again.

We didn't say anything for a while, and I felt the baby kicking. I put my hand against my belly and pressed, just enough to feel the little feet push back, both at once, like a donkey. Maybe I was giving birth to a donkey and not a baby, so the prophecy wouldn't apply. I could give birth to a little donkey, and later I could transfigure him into a baby, but until then he would be safe, because no one would ever suspect a donkey...

The hand brushing my hair was trembling. I craned my neck and looked at Lily. "What will we do?"

I remember it very clearly. I saw blank hard resolve in Lily's eyes when she whispered, "Whatever it takes."

For the rest of the month, I prayed for a girl.

I'm not a coward. I wouldn't be an Auror if I were. It surprises people to find that out most of the time—Alice? _Auror?_ They usually think that I'm joking. They think all the Aurors must be like Frank, tall and musclebound and quick with a wand. They don't think about all the things Frank can't do, like blend into a crowd, or trace a spell, or—God bless him—brew a potion to save his life. They don't understand it's not all about the fighting. But just because I _don't_ always fight, doesn't mean that I'm a coward.

I just wanted to protect my son.

He came three days early, though, so maybe he didn't want to be protected.

I didn't talk to Lily after the boys were born—oh, too dangerous, much too dangerous—but...I wrote her letters. Long ones. Especially after the attacks started—we were able to hide for so long, we convinced so many people that Neville was born August first at first—Frank and I didn't dare come out of hiding then, didn't dare make anyone else a target, and I started writing letters in the middle of the night with Neville nursing in my other arm. I don't know why Lily exactly, except that she might understand.

__

I'm so scared for Neville.

I'm tired of running.

I want to go home.

When we finally found the cottage—a deserted old place in the middle of a moor, with one bedroom and so many wards we couldn't even open a window—I wrote them during the day.

__

Maybe we'll have a little girl next.

Maybe Frank can get a desk job.

Maybe Neville and Harry will grow up to be friends.

I would wake up crying at all hours of night, and Frank would try to comfort me; he would pull me into his arms and wrap himself around me, whispering, in the way that used to make me feel safe and small. I didn't want to feel _small_ then, though—I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to know I could save Neville and everyone else. I wanted to be taller and stronger and smarter and braver and _better._

I suppose, in a little way, I wanted to be more like Lily.

We were some of the last to know, you know. Frank's mother took a week to track us down. She knocked on the door and Frank went for cover and I ran into the bedroom—Neville's crib was there, he was napping—I was too terrified to cry, too panicked to draw my wand. When we realized who it was we both burst into tears, and it was over an hour before I found out I'd been writing to a dead woman.

Frank and I mourn in our own way; we found our families and friends again, we found out who else we had lost. I tried to write a letter to Remus Lupin but no one seems to know his address these days; Hestia Jones thinks he went to the Continent. We mourn, but just a little bit, I'm happy. No—_relieved._ I am relieved. It wasn't us. It wasn't me.

I wonder sometimes, though, what I would've done—if it had been us, I mean. I wonder if I would've screamed and cried, gibbered, run away. I wonder if I could've been grim and hard, like Lily. Or maybe it would've been like the first and only time I saw _HIM—_standing over my mother's body laughing, before my backup arrived. Maybe I would've just pointed my wand at _HIM_ like I did that day, because that day I was hollow with rage, hollow and crazy and hateful and ready to die.

Maybe that's how Lily felt, at the end. Maybe she was grim and hard. Maybe she cried and begged and thought just a little bit about running away. I don't suppose it matters, though, since the end is still the end. _HE_ is gone, and Harry is an orphan. It wasn't me. I'll never know.

I've been sitting with Neville a lot lately, holding him close while he gurgles and chews on my hair. I tell him about his Uncle Jamie and Aunt Lily—I don't know why I phrase it like that—about the little boy with the same birthday who was sent away to the Muggles. Neville is not scarred; he will grow up with a mummy and a daddy and a future. Harry will not.

Lily will get an Order of Merlin, and her son will be a hero. I hug Neville closer to my heart. Harry will be famous all over the world. Neville will have a family and a future. Lily will be a heroine; I will be a mum. I don't know if I could've saved my son. I know Lily couldn't.

__

Better her than me.


End file.
